Professor LawDog’s School of Survival and Mayhem

Good morning, class. Today’s lesson is particularly geared towards the distaff side of the species, it is specifically: Appropriate Countermeasures to the Front Chokehold.

The Front Chokehold is, of course, when you are facing your assailant and he places both of his hands around your neck and squeezes.

I say ‘he’ because, quite frankly, I don’t see a lot of women attempting this really stupid maneuver.

I am, however, seeing an annoying uptick in the number of feral boyfriends, lovers, spouses and others utilizing said stupid maneuver — not so much to cause death by strangulation, but to induce fear and panic before using the grip on the neck to throw the victim across the room — and, quite frankly, it’s pissing me off.

So.

To begin, understand that we here at LawDog Institute are not particularly concerned with the well-being of your attacker. Matter-of-fact, we believe that if your feral boyfriend is dead or brain-damaged, the odds of him being able to con you into believing “it won’t happen again” and have you go back to him drop sharply.

With this in mind, however, do not practice this at full speed with a sparring partner.

Do not practice this at half-speed with a sparring partner.

There is a very real risk of death or serious bodily injury here, and I do not want to hear that you accidentally paralyzed your Pookie during training — so practice this in super-slow motion anytime you are training with a partner.

Now. Visualize your own personal critter with both hands around your throat, squeezing. If you are a woman, and a man is squeezing your throat — it is deadly force. Even if he “didn’t mean to do it”, it is far too easy to damage the airway, damage the blood vessels in the neck, crush the larynx or fracture the delicate bones in your neck. Getting you by the throat just elevated this jackass from ‘Critter’ to ‘Personal Chew-Toy’.

Notice, do, that it is impossible for your attacker to bring his elbows together — his shoulders prevent it. In addition, 99% of your assailants are going to bend their elbows out at a forty to ninety degree angle to get better leverage to kill you.

It is this space between his elbows that we are going to play with.

First, I want you to spot your chew-toy’s chin. Eying his chin, I want you to drive your right elbow straight up between his arms and upwards through his chin to his forehead.

Let me repeat that — drive through his chin and past his forehead. If you are left-handed, do this with your left elbow.

If his chin is too far away — doubtful, but possible — drive the palm of the proper hand through his chin and past his forehead.

Our purpose here is two-fold. One, we want our upper arm/shoulder between chew-toy’s hands. Two, we want to slam the Brain Housing Group back on the pivot of the spine.

Several things may happen at this point. Your personal chew-toy may bite his tongue, lose teeth, break his jaw, and/or damage the delicate joint between the Atlas vertebrae (the first cervical vertebrae) and the skull. What we’re really going for, though, is the wet squelch when the inside of his forehead slams into his grey matter.

So, you now have your elbow up around your forehead. At this point, I want you to whip your elbow out and down so that your elbow ends up somewhere behind the proper side kidney. If you have the presence of mind, feel free to step back with the right foot as you do this, to provide extra power.

Again, if you are doing this with your left hand, switch the above instructions as required.

Observe that this forces the lever of your upper arm and shoulder against the fingers, and brings the power of your shoulder and upper back muscles to bear against the chew-toy’s forearm muscles. You will rip that particular hand away from your neck — there is nothing he can do with that hand to prevent this.

As your elbow comes back, spot your chew-toy’s jaw. On the side towards your elbow, I want you to fix your attention to the spot midway between the point of his chin and the hinge of the jaw. Keeping your gaze on that spot, I want you to pivot your hips counter-clockwise (clockwise, if you’re a southpaw). If you stepped back with your foot earlier — now step forward. As you pivot your hips, crank your waist hard counter-clockwise (or clockwise) and throw your left shoulder back and your right one forward.

Using this whiplash motion, slam your right elbow into that spot on his jaw you are focused upon. Force your elbow through his mouth, continuing pivotting counter-clockwise — and you are facing to your left (or right).

Again, several things may happen at this point. Any teeth that escaped breakage earlier are probably now gone. The jaw may be broken (again), and you may have damaged the delicate joint between the Atlas and Axis (C1 and C2) vertebrae at the top of his spine. Again, though, what we’re going for is a thorough beat-down of his cerebral tissue using the inside of his skull.

Hey, look. You ended the exercise facing left (or right). Time to run like hell for safety and call 911.

Always, always, always call 911, because the first person to talk to the cops has an incredible advantage — and you don’t want your chew toy to get his story in first.

Three simple, albeit brutal, moves: 1)Up; 2)Down/out; and 3)Across. Practice it slowly ten times a day, and let adrenaline add the speed and force should you ever (Goddess forfend) need to use it for real.

Class dismissed.

LawDog

Oh. My. God.

Many of my Gentle Readers have noticed the lolcat link over on the left. I have been watching the lolcat phenomenon, not only because most lolcats are amusing, but because seeing how various lolcat memes evolve piques my interest.

One of these memes is Ceiling Cat. And when I say evolve, Ceiling Cat has gone from a picture of a cat staring through a hole in dry-wall to, well …

…this.

Yes. The Bible — in lolcat.

I giggled like a schoolgirl. Srsly.

LawDog

Monster Hunter International

My friend Larry Correia’s book is now available, and despite my antipathy to Amazon.com, you can order his book through them.

It is an engaging read, thoroughly engrossing and sprinkled with sly humour. Larry sent me his first draft — and the second, come to think — for me to proof-read, but others better at the process to him well in hand, so I got to read it for the enjoyment.

Try it, if you like late-night monster flicks you’ll love this book.

LawDog

Melancholy

Among the calls that I really hate are those that come from a detective asking, “Hey, could you check the jail records and see if [Insert Name Here] ever listed a next of kin?”

Everyone knows the name, because the man attached to it has been arrested several hundred times in the last five years. And that’s not hyperbole.

Public Intoxication, mostly, but a significant number of Inhalant Abuse charges, and Criminal Trespass — because the local stores got tired of him shoplifting aerosol paint and barred him from entering.

He always came to jail either stoned and friendly, or stoned and fighting, filthy and stinking. He’d detox for about a week, and then he was a mousy little grey man unnoticed in General Population, or occasionally as a trustee.

He’d go to trial with a Public Defender, his charges would be pled to Time Served and then he’d be released to go back to his little camp under the river bridge on the edge of town. Usually shoplifting a can of Krylon on the way.

He never listed any next of kin, never had any visitors. Older personnel seem to remember a brother, but no one can nail anything down.

*sigh*

I know that dying is the ultimate lonely experience. No matter how many people are with you on this side, or the other — death is a one-person doorway.

Still, it just seems to me a terrible tragedy that the only people to know of, or care, about this man’s passing are patrol officers and jail staff.

That he’ll be processed by a government functionary and laid to rest by a back-hoe driver.

No matter how good you are, or how bad you are, there should be kith or kin to mourn, to dress you, and to walk you to your final resting place.

I know that life isn’t fair, but … still.

LawDog

New blogger for the New Year

Long time readers of these little scribblings will have noticed that I occasionally post stories from my friend Peter.

Author, historian, soldier, fellow African ex-pat, and more — he is the source of the quote:

“An amateur practices until he gets it right. A professional practices until he can’t get it wrong”

— I am honoured to call this man a friend.

After months of suggesting, Peter has gone and gotten hisself a blog:

Bayou Renaissance Man.

Go by and visit — you won’t be disappointed.

LawDog